Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)

Article 6 of the directive allows for telephone and Internet data to be retained for a minimum of six months and a maximum of two years. We all accept the principle of the retention of data and each state is at liberty to choose where on that scale it pitches its obligatory data retention provision. The norm is as per the Labour Party position set down in these amendments. There is no contradiction between being in favour of the principle of the retention of data and being against what the Government proposes. If one puts an onus on Internet service providers and telephony companies to retain data, they must retain all Internet related traffic for a period of two years. If one is investigating a crime, one cannot speak to the content of the data. If I use my Gmail account to e-mail someone, who is subsequently charged with a crime, one can only state that correspondence took place between me and the other person but one does not have access to the content. Why would one impose a cost beyond 12 months on a telephony company or an Internet service provider if one can merely deduce that communication took place without having access to the content? Let us consider the examples of social networking sites such as Bebo, Facebook and Twitter and web-based e-mail accounts such as Hotmail. The Minister of State cannot argue that this measure will not place a cost burden on these providers because every single piece of traffic must be stored somewhere. I imagine the vast bulk of it will be stored outside the confines of the State because many of these Internet service providers are international companies and have specific storage facilities. However, it will increase the cost burden for those who operate in Ireland, such as Irish companies with storage facilities here. By increasing the cost burden, one must consider whether it will be pertinent to the solving of a crime thereafter. The argument of the Labour Party is that it will not.

On Committee Stage, the Minister of State commented:

The significance of this is that Internet is a relatively new technology. It is accepted that the vast majority of disclosure requests [the requests that will arise from the vested officers] are for data less than three months old.

If the vast majority of disclosure requests are for data less than three months old, the position of the Labour Party is that the measure exceeds that which the Minister of State stated on Committee Stage. That is the logic behind the two amendments we have tabled.

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